The whole nobility of the north were now enlisted in the "Pilgrimage of Grace," as the rising called itself, and thirty thousand "tall men and well horsed" moved on the Don demanding the reversal of the royal policy, a reunion with Rome, the restoration of Catharine's daughter, Mary, to her rights as heiress of the Crown, redress for the wrongs done to the Church, and above all the driving away of base-born councillors, or in other words, the fall of Cromwell.

Though their advance was checked by negotiation, the organization of the revolt went steadily on throughout the winter, and a Parliament of the North which gathered at Pomfret formally adopted the demands of the insurgents.
Only six thousand men under Norfolk barred their way southward, and the Midland counties were known to be disaffected.
[Sidenote: Its Suppression] But Cromwell remained undaunted by the peril.

He suffered indeed Norfolk to negotiate; and allowed Henry under pressure from his Council to promise pardon and a free Parliament at York, a pledge which Norfolk and Darcy alike construed into an acceptance of the demands made by the insurgents.
Their leaders at once flung aside the badge of the Five Wounds which they had worn with a cry, "We will wear no badge but that of our Lord the King," and nobles and farmers dispersed to their homes in triumph.

But the towns of the North were no sooner garrisoned and Norfolk's army in the heart of Yorkshire than the veil was flung aside.

A few isolated outbreaks in the spring of 1537 gave a pretext for the withdrawal of every concession.